Anker Soundcore A40

After my fiio LC-BT1 ear hook went bad, I felt it was time to switch to a TWS earbud, something that wasn’t a hassle to carry around and charge. Also something that would work for my on the go music, gaming and Netflix/YouTube usage. That something was the Anker soundcore A40, that tick all the boxes in the functional and features that I wanted. The unit was bought by me, and the review will be my unbiased opinion on them.


The Anker soundcore A40 comes inside a small box, Inside it is the charger with the earbuds inside, under it is the manuals the Type C to USB Charging cable and then the 4 pairs of ear tips taped to the bottom of the ear tips holder.

Sizes of the 5 tips are extra small, small, Large and Extra large, with the medium size tips being already on the earbuds them self. The tips them self felt decent enough.

Normally I wear a medium size ear tip when ever I use Iem/TWS, but sadly the stock tips are bad, They are unusable for me. The medium size did not even stay in my ears, While the large fixed this issue, neither kept a seal. Only the Extra Large fixed the seal issue. Only problem with using the extra large tip is it kinda not comfortable. The Spin Fit 100 and 145 medium works perfectly with the A40 and it more easier on my ears then the stock tips. They have no issue fitting inside of the case.




The touch controls is a useful feature, as I didn’t have much of a problem double tapping and holding. The single tap is disable by default, it did have some issues where if I double tap with single tap enabled it would some time double raise or double lower the volume with the -/+ volume set to single. Other times I found my self having to tap it again due to not taping it in the center, but that didn’t happen a lot but enough for it to be a bother.


I feel if the touch function was a tad more sensitive to the tapping then it would work better. Since it would make using single tap to change the volume easier, because I found using the A40 touch to raise the volume to be better then manually using my A53 phone volume as it raised the volume at a lower % at a time, where the phone raised it a lot by %.

The charging case has a Type C connector on it’s rear, but that isn’t the only way to charge it. The case also supports QI wireless charging, which is very useful if you want an easier way to keep your earbuds and case charged.


I didn’t have an issue with the charging case, ear buds went back in without a hassle, taking them back out a minor issue due to some times not being able to grab one to take it out. But I think that just a me problem.

The Anker soundcore android app worked really well on my phone for me and has plenty of options and functionally, such as showing you how much battery % your earbuds has. ANC, Transparently mode and normal, ANC blocks out sound while transparently allows you to hear people talking to you so you can respond, while normal turns every thing off, for normal listening.

I found the ANC to work all right since it blocks most of the noises from my room, such as my computer loud case fans, and other noises. But it doesn’t completely block mechanical keyboards, if there using loud key switches. While transparently mode allows in sounds in, Voical mode allows voices to past thru to your ears.


Hear ID that test your hearing and then applied an EQ setting based on you results, Basically if you have hearing lost, it will try to boost those freq ranges trying to make them louder in the hope you be able to hear them. For me it didn’t work that well and inside effected the sound in a bad way. Made songs sound awful and I had to disable it and use the stock EQ settings.

Next up is the EQ setting which allows you to tweak the sound to your liking, there are a total of 8 bands, with the option to save more then one custom EQ settings.


The A40 uses Bluetooth 5.2 and supports SBC, AAC and Ldac(firmware update), While it supports connecting to two different devices, if your like me and use Ldac then it will only connect to one device. using two different Bluetooth devices at once will req you to disable Ldac.


In game mode which lowered latency for gaming on mobility, I found it to work really well, I didn’t have any issues with sounds being delayed or any other issues in games, even when I used steam link and NVIDIA streaming. When I listen to a couple of songs I didn’t have any drop connections and it all sound very good.



Here what I will be using my Galaxy A53 with the A40 set to Ldac mode, using the signature sound setting. Also I will be using the Spinfit 140 ear tips, since that makes the earbud usable. Also the firmware was updated to the latest one for Ldac support.




Mark Petrie Aeons- Approaching the Summit

The location of the sounds felt like I was either in the front row, or up on stage with different instruments such as pianos on my left and right side. The notes wasn’t thin sounding at all. The kick bass was really heavy with it hits.


Micheal Jackson – Beat it

Right away sound image wise, I feel like Micheal is directly in front of me and his backup singers are on the left and right of me. All the other sounds that they make, I can hear it all and the location that they are standing at. None of their voices sound thin. Nothing else sticks out in the song.


Gaming/Media

I will say this, Game mode works really well, no issues at all, I been doing a lot of steam link and NVIDIA go on my phone. No issues at all with audio delay. Games sound really good, especially with the bass being what it is.

I worked a couple of YouTube videos in the normal mode, there is no latency, when some one speaks, the audio match the movement of their mouths. Same with watching Netflix, no issues there either. In all of the Bluetooth earbuds that I used/owned in the past, this is an improvement.

Conclusion

Bass and the sound image is the only thing that I notice with the A40, nothing else stuck out. I don’t know how else to explain it.

Being able to now watch media or play games on the go without having issues with latency good. In my opinion makes the A40 really good for this purpose. While I did enjoy the bass sound of the A40, I just wish it were cleaner and didn’t sound boomy.

If in the future Anker improves these, then the first thing they should do is improve the quality of the stock ear tips, so the earbuds will be usable out the box. That is the major problem wit them, I glad that Spinfit 145 worked with them, because if they didn’t then I would’ve outta luck. The touch controls could use a bit of an improvement, maybe a bit more sensitively.